Category Archives: Louisiana

Dementia diagnosis could delay trial of New Orleans priest accused of rape

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Attorneys for Lawrence Hecker, charged with raping teen in 1975, urge judge to declare him incompetent to stand trial

Retired Catholic priest and self-acknowledged child molester Lawrence Hecker’s trial on rape and kidnapping charges – scheduled for 24 September – could be significantly delayed yet again after a medical report on the 92-year-old’s mental health has been filed in court.

A court-ordered psychiatric evaluation diagnosed Hecker with dementia, saying he has “good days and bad days”, according to a statement from his defense team. Defense attorneys Matthew McLaren and Eugene Redmann issued a statement Tuesday urging judge Benedict Willard to declare Hecker incompetent to stand trial.

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Volunteer with key role in New Orleans church bankruptcy admits to stunning lack of qualifications

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Lee Eagan said he lacked prior experience, failed to familiarize himself with rules and suffered cognitive decline as case expenses soar to $40m

A US government official is questioning the soaring legal fees paid by the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans after the volunteer managing the organization’s four-and-a-half-year-old bankruptcy admitted under oath to a stunning lack of qualifications for his role. Lee Eagan, a local businessman, testified in early July to having never previously policed the costs of a bankruptcy as well as failing to familiarize himself with the rules for that kind of proceeding.

He also swore – in a separate series of earlier depositions – to grappling with substantial cognitive decline after a severe car crash nearly two years beforehand.

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US governor tells parents kids can ‘not look’ at Ten Commandments in schools

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Louisiana’s Jeff Landry was defending a law requiring display of text in all public schools starting next year

The far-right Louisiana governor, Jeff Landry, has told parents who don’t want the Ten Commandments hung in up classrooms across the state – as now required by law there – to tell their children to “not look at them”.

The Republican’s remarks came at a news conference on Monday defending the mandate, about two months after Louisiana became the first state in the country to order the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all public school classrooms.

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One-year-old child survives two days on side of busy highway in Louisiana

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Truck driver rescued baby near where the child’s four-year-old brother was found dead; the mother is now in custody

A Texas truck driver is being praised for rescuing a one-year-old boy who was seen crawling along a busy highway after surviving on his own for two days amid weather from Hurricane Beryl.

Reginald Walton, a driver for DHL Supply Chain, spotted the infant near a section of Interstate 10 in Calcasieu parish, Louisiana, near the state’s south-western border.

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Louisiana families file lawsuit against Ten Commandments display in schools

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Human rights groups also back filing which aims to block state’s new law forcing public schools to showcase text

Several Louisiana families backed by human rights groups have lodged a lawsuit in federal court seeking to block the state’s new law forcing public schools to display the Ten Commandments.

The suit was filed with the US district court in Baton Rouge on Monday at the start of what is expected to be an epic legal battle that could end up before the US supreme court. Christian nationalists have been itching for this fight, hoping to destroy the country’s longstanding separation of church and state.

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Ten Commandments to be displayed in Louisiana public school classrooms

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Law passed requiring text to be displayed in every public school classroom, although lawsuits against it are expected

Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom under a bill signed into law by the Republican governor, Jeff Landry, on Wednesday.

The GOP-drafted legislation mandates that a poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments in “large, easily readable font” be required in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state-funded universities. Although the bill did not receive final approval from Landry, the time for gubernatorial action – to sign or veto the bill – has lapsed.

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Heatwaves and wildfires strike across US as tropical storm forms in gulf

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Tropical storm due to form in Gulf of Mexico, adding to extreme weather as north-east and midwest bake

Potential Tropical Cyclone One – a slow churning system of low atmospheric pressure in the Gulf of Mexico – was badgering the Texas coast but had not fully developed, meteorologists said on Wednesday.

The storm, which will be named Tropical Storm Alberto when it forms fully, is set to unleash powerful winds, heavy rain and flood threats across the entire southern US, Mexico and Central America. Storm-force winds, which stretch more than 400 miles (640km) from the storm’s center, are already affecting southern Texas.

This article was amended on 19 June 2024 to correct a quotation from Bill Nye.

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Republican governors gather to attack Biden’s climate agenda

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Governors say president has ‘done nothing but attack American energy’ and urge end to US fossil-fuel rules and regulations

Republican governors gathered in the fossil-fuel rich state of Louisiana on Monday to rail against the Biden administration’s climate agenda and lay out plans to “unleash American energy”, alarming community advocates and climate experts.

“President Biden has done nothing but attack American energy,” said the Louisiana governor Jeff Landry, who led the Wednesday press conference.

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Louisiana expected to classify abortion pills as controlled and dangerous substances

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First-of-its-kind bill on mifepristone and misoprostol passed state legislature and is expected to be signed into law by governor

Two abortion-inducing drugs could soon be reclassified as controlled and dangerous substances in Louisiana under a first-of-its-kind bill that received final legislative passage on Thursday and is expected to be signed into law by the governor.

Supporters of the reclassification of mifepristone and misoprostol, commonly known as “abortion pills”, say it would protect expectant mothers from coerced abortions. Numerous doctors, meanwhile, have said it will make it harder for them to prescribe the medicines they use for other important reproductive healthcare needs, and could delay treatment.

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‘It wasn’t a big deal’: secret deposition reveals how a child molester priest was shielded by his church

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Lawrence Hecker pleaded the fifth 117 times as he detailed how the Catholic church protected him for more than two decades after he admitted to molesting children

Longtime New Orleans Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker received a special honor from the Vatican nearly 25 years ago despite having confessed to molesting children. Then, for another two decades, church leaders in the city strategically shielded him from law enforcement and media exposure – while also providing him with financial support ranging from paid limousine rides and therapeutic massages to full retirement benefits, according to his own, previously unreported testimony.

A sworn deposition Hecker gave in private in 2020 shows exactly how high-placed Catholic church officials in New Orleans let him keep his elevated position for years, even after they had been advised to oust him from the clergy and – much later – publicly acknowledged that he was a child predator.

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‘We were encouraged to be with younger boys’: breaking down a child molester priest’s secret testimony

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In unearthed deposition, Lawrence Hecker pleaded the fifth 117 times, but still provided damning details of decades-long predatory behavior

The Guardian and CBS affiliate WWL Louisiana have obtained a long suppressed, eight-and-a-half-hour deposition of a 92-year-old Catholic priest charged with physically overpowering and raping a boy in a New Orleans church in 1975.

Taken in 2020 as part of a civil lawsuit demanding damages from him and the church, clergyman Lawrence Hecker provides in the deposition the most complete account yet of how the US’s second-oldest archdiocese spent much of its recent history taking extreme measures to keep the public from finding out about his abusive past. The questioning – which the church has fought in court for years to keep hidden – also reveals steps the city’s last four archbishops took to help him avoid accountability for decades.

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US man diagnosed with brain damage after allegedly being pushed into lake

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Yolanda George, mother of Christopher Gilbert, calls on police to make arrest after incident in Louisiana in April

The family of a 26-year-old Louisiana man who has brain damage after a friend allegedly pushed him into a lake despite him being unable to swim is calling on authorities to deliver them justice.

Christopher Gilbert’s family’s pleas came after he nearly drowned on 14 April while at a lakefront restaurant by Lake D’Arbonne in the northern Louisiana town of Farmerville.

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More than 2,000 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested across US campuses

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Police arrest more than 200 students at UCLA as law enforcement clears camp at Dartmouth, arresting more than 90 students

More than 2,000 people have now been arrested during pro-Palestinian protests across dozens of US college campuses in recent weeks.

Police arrested more than 300 pro-Palestinian demonstrators on college campuses on Wednesday night into Thursday morning, pushing the total past 2,000, according to an Associated Press tally.

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US judges reject new Louisiana voting map with second majority-Black district

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Rejection by three-judge panel fuels new uncertainty about district boundaries as state prepares for congressional elections

A new congressional map giving Louisiana a second majority-Black House district was rejected on Tuesday by a panel of three federal judges, fueling new uncertainty about district boundaries as the state prepares for fall congressional elections.

The 2-1 ruling forbids the use of a map drawn up in January by the legislature after a different federal judge blocked a map from 2022. The earlier map maintained a single Black-majority district and five mostly white districts, in a state with a population that is about one-third Black.

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US priest accused of raping teen in 1975 not fit to stand trial, psychiatrists say

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Retired Lawrence Hecker, 92, charged in New Orleans, has memory loss and should be re-evaluated at later date, report finds

A 92-year-old retired Catholic priest charged with strangling a teenager and raping him in a New Orleans church in 1975 has short-term memory loss that prevents him from assisting in his defense, according to a team of forensic psychiatrists whose findings could influence whether one of Louisiana’s most prominent cases of clergy abuse is ever tried.

In a report which has not been publicly released but was reviewed Tuesday by WWL Louisiana and the Guardian, the psychiatrists said the priest – Lawrence Hecker – should not be tried for now on rape, kidnapping, crimes against nature and theft charges until he is re-evaluated later.

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Doctor to say if New Orleans priest with rape charges is competent to stand trial

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Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker, 92, was evaluated by psychiatrist after defense attorneys said he’s too sick to be tried

Seven months after his arrest on rape and kidnapping charges, 92-year-old Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker appeared in court in Louisiana on Thursday in an orange prison jumpsuit, was rolled in a wheelchair to a back room and was evaluated by a doctor to see if he’s competent to stand trial.

Since being charged with aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated crime against nature and theft, Hecker has taken ill and was transferred from Orleans parish jail to a long-term care facility, under armed guard. Hecker’s defense attorneys argue he’s too sick to be tried and filed a motion last month to have him evaluated for his mental competency.

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Louisiana Democrat wins sheriff’s race do-over after first victory was disputed

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Henry Whitehorn, who won by a single vote in November, will be the first Black sheriff in Caddo county

Months after his disputed one-vote victory in a Louisiana sheriff’s race was tossed by a court, a Democrat was decisively elected over his Republican rival on his second try Saturday.

Henry Whitehorn got 53% of the vote in Saturday’s election in north-west Louisiana’s Caddo parish. He’ll be the first Black sheriff in the parish – which is the word Louisiana uses for county – after defeating John Nickelson, who is white.

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Dismay as Louisiana lookback law for child sexual abuse victims struck down

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Court rules 4-3 to overturn law that had allowed victims to file civil suits over sexual abuse that took place decades ago

In a split ruling that has major implications for hundreds of child sexual abuse victims, the Louisiana state supreme court has struck down a law that had allowed victims to file civil lawsuits over molestation that happened decades ago.

Child molestation victims and their advocates were devastated by the 4-3 ruling from a court whose members are elected.

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Sixteen states sue US over ban on approvals for LNG exports

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States including Texas, Louisiana and Florida say federal government lacks authority to broadly deny permits

Sixteen US states, including Texas, Louisiana and Florida, have filed a lawsuit to challenge the US federal government’s ban on approving applications to export liquefied natural gas, the office of Texas attorney general Ken Paxton said on Thursday.

The lawsuit argues the federal government lacks the authority to broadly deny those permits.

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Republican Bill Cassidy derides Trump and calls 2024 race ‘sorry state of affairs’

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Louisiana senator expressed disapproval of the former president, saying: ‘Is this a person we want to have an office?’

Louisiana’s Republican senator Bill Cassidy has issued new criticisms towards Donald Trump while calling the 2024 presidential race a “sorry state of affairs”.

In an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Cassidy expressed his disapproval for Trump’s hostile rhetoric towards migrants, saying that it has “reflected poorly in terms of regarding folks who are coming here … illegally – and they shouldn’t be, but in a dehumanizing fashion”.

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